Writing college essays is definitely the most anxiety-provoking part about applying to college, mainly because so much weight is placed on essays when applying to competitive schools. In fact, colleges often use essays to distinguish students with similar test scores and GPAs. Halie Olson, a senior at Harvard College, shares tips for writing a great college essay that will help you stand out from other applicants:

Just start writing. Sometimes just getting something on the page is the best first step.

Starting over can be the best strategy. When the first attempt doesn't feel right, starting with a new topic can be the way to go.

Ask others to read over your work. An outside perspective is so important to make sure you're on the right track.

Expect multiple drafts. Editing is such an important part of creating a stellar essay.

While we won't see you in New Orleans this IECA Conference (we'll be there in the spring), we wanted to let you know that we're thinking of you -- especially since November is the busiest month for college essays now that students are turning from their early applications to all their regular applications.

Email us at [email protected] or call us at 646-448-4927 with any questions at all. And be sure to stop by our partner CollegePlannerPro for more info on how you can access College Essay Organizer through CPP.

In case you haven't checked us out this season, our newest upgrades include:

Use our new master account interface through CollegePlannerPro so you can access all your clients' essay reports and alerts on one page, getting a snapshot of everyone's status

Set up alerts to be emailed to any counselor you want so students can edit drafts with whomever

Customize each student's RoadMap with more essay topic options so that you control all writing plans

Remove schools on your own from a student's RoadMap so you don't need to look at dropped colleges anymore

Keep track of tasks and notes for each student with our new To Do List and Scratchpad features
Our team of dedicated researchers is extremely proud to have provided you with another season of 100% error-free college essay experience!